Wedged between real estate speculators, startup bros, and gentrified neighborhoods, it’s gotten hard to get by in San Francisco and it’s getting harder all the time. Now two witches have decided the time has come to do something about it.

Using all their arcane skills, Iria – tall, dark, and genderqueer – and their partner and mentor, Madge – a powerful witch and the descendent of Chinese immigrants – have summoned back to the world of the living one of San Francisco’s greatest eccentric heroes: Joshua Norton, self-declared Emperor of the United States, to help them save San Francisco from a demon of greed.

With an exciting combination of spell-slinging and derring-do, Norton and his modern-day patrons embark on a series of adventures across San Francisco’s past and present to save the city’s soul!

Michael G. Williams writes queer-themed horror and science fiction celebrating the monstrous and the macabre. His books include the award-winning vampire series The Withrow Chronicles (Laine Cunningham Award); the thrilling urban fantasy time travel series Servant Sovereign; the sci-fi noir A Fall in Autumn (Manly Wade Wellman Award); and a mess of short stories. Michael strives to present the humor and humanity at the heart of horror and sci fi with stories of outcasts and loners finding their people and power. Children of Solitude is his thirteenth book.

Michael co-hosts Arcane Carolinas and Data@Rest, studied Performance Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University, and is a brother in St. Anthony Hall and Mu Beta Psi. He is an active member of SFWA, HWA, and is a Trustee of the NC Writers Network. He lives in North Carolina with his husband and a variety of animals